Far-right spy row continues to rock Germany’s ruling coalition

August 19, 2019 by Leave a comment

Hans-Georg MaassenThe successor to Angela Merkel in the leadership of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) urged the removal from the party of the country’s former spy chief for expressing far-right views. But she later appeared to retract her comments. Hans-Georg Maassen led Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) from August 2012 until his removal last September. His BfV career was abruptly terminated following the so-called Chemnitz protests, a series of anti-immigrant rallies, pogroms and riots that shook the eastern German city of Chemnitz in August of last year. Maassen gave an interview at the time in which he seemed to question the authenticity of videos that surfaced on social media, which showed protesters throwing Nazi salutes and singing Nazi-era songs. The BfV director said that the videos may have been faked as part of a disinformation campaign aimed at stirring racial tensions in Germany. He was promptly dismissed from his post.

Following his dismissal from the BfV, Maassen joined the Werteunion (Values Union), an ultra-conservative group within the CDU, which campaigns for strict anti-immigration laws. Its leader, CDU politician Alexander Mitsch, argues that the CDU should not rule out a governing alliance with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The AfD is a coalition of Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi groups that has gained prominence since its establishment in 2013 and currently polls at around 12 percent nationwide. Mitsch’s view goes against the CDU’s recent decision at its annual conference to rule out any collaboration with the AfD and Die Linke, Germany’s main far-left party. Maassen has also given media interviews in which he has criticized the CDU for “moving far to the left” under the leadership of Angela Merkel.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who succeeded Angela Merkel to the leadership of the CDU, and is tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor, gave an interview on Saturday, in which she dismissed Maassen’s views as nonsense. Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is currently serving as minister of defense, told the Funke Medien media agency she was pleased that Maassen had been dismissed from the directorship of the BfV. She added that she could not see anything in Maassen’s political views that connected him to the CDU. Kramp-Karrenbauer went on to say that she would not allow the CDU to be “radicalized from the inside” like the United States Republican Party had been radicalized by the Tea Party. This was widely interpreted as a call for Maassen and other Werteunion supporters to either resign or be expelled from the party.

On Sunday, however, Kramp-Karrenbauer spoke to the media again, this time to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) news agency, saying that “neither during the [Funke Medien] interview nor elsewhere did I call for a party expulsion procedure” of Maassen and other Werteunion members. She continued by saying that “the CDU is a party with more than 400,000 members. The fact that each one has different opinions is what makes us interesting”. Meanwhile, Maassen told DPA, “it is a mystery to me who advised her to conjure up such thoughts”, referring to Kramp-Karrenbauer’s Saturday interview.

In September and October the CDU will be facing the AfD and several other parties in regional elections that will be taking place in three eastern German states, where the AfD is particularly strong. Many fear that Kramp-Karrenbauer’s party will see its electoral power shrink with many of its voters flocking to the anti-immigration AfD.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 August 2019 | Permalink

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Italian police find ‘combat-ready’ air-to-air missile in raids on far-right groups

July 16, 2019 by Leave a comment

Air to air missile ItalyPolice in Italy have found an air-to-air missile in “perfect working order” alongside dozens of guns during raids on homes belonging to members of far-right groups. The raids took place in several northern Italian cities and were coordinated by the Digos, a special unit of the Turin Municipal Police that deals with organized crime and terrorism. Aside from Turin, synchronized raids took place in Varese, Novara, Forli and Milan. According to reports in the Italian media, the raids were part of a large-scale investigation into an extensive network of Italian far-right groups whose members provided logistical and material support to Russian-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine.

At least three men were arrested in connection with the raids, two of them in Forli and one in Galarate, a small town near Varese on the Italian-Swiss border. They were named as Alessandro Monti, 42, a Swiss national, and Fabio Bernardi, 51, an Italian national. A third man, Fabio Del Bergiolo, 50, also an Italian national, is reportedly a retired customs officer who in 2001 run for office with Forza Nuova, a neo-fascist Italian grouping. Until 2014, Forza Nuova activists were known to have close links with Svoboda, the far-right Ukrainian paramilitary group. But in the past five years, the Italian neo-fascist group’s leaders have openly sided with Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebels. Italian police reported that they found several guns in Bergiolo’s home, including nine unspecified “assault weapons” and 29 hunting rifles, as well as pistols and ammunition. But the most worrying find was an air-to-air guided missile at an airport hangar, which was placed inside a box that belonged to one of the three men. The missile is designed to be fired from an aircraft to target another aircraft. It is reportedly a Matra Super 530F, which was manufactured by France in 1980. According to the police report, it is “in perfect working order”. The most recent legal owner of the missile was the Qatar Air Force. It is not known how it ended up in the hands of the three suspects, but it is believed that they have been seeking to sell it in the black market.

The police raids took place less than two weeks after a court in Genoa sentenced three men for traveling to Russia and taking up arms alongside pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The three men were identified in court reports as Antonio Cataldo, an Italian citizen, Olsi Krutani, from Albania, and Vladimir Vrbitchii, who is from Moldova. The three men received jail sentences ranging from 16 months to 34 months. As a reminder, last September security agencies in Eastern Europe voiced concern about the rise of far-right paramilitary groups whose members allegedly have access to increasingly heavy weaponry, including in some cases armored vehicles and tanks.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 July 2019 | Permalink

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France arrests six far-right militants who plotted to kill President Macron

November 7, 2018 by 1 Comment

Emmanuel MacronAuthorities in France have announced the arrest of six individuals who were allegedly involved in a plot to kill French President Emmanuel Macron. Government prosecutors said on Tuesday that the six were arrested for planning “a violent action against the president of the Republic”. A former economy and industry minister, Macron resigned from the cabinet of left-of-center Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2016 in order to lead a new right-of-center movement called En marche (Forward). In 2017 he won the presidential election with 66.1 percent, becoming the youngest president in the history of France.

French security services have responded to several instances of potential plots against Macron. In one recent case, a man was charged in July of last year with plotting to kill the president during France’s annual Bastille Day celebrations. This latest case, however, appears to be larger in size and sophistication. According to prosecutors, Tuesday’s arrests were part of a wider probe in to “a criminal terrorist association”. All six suspects had reportedly been monitored for quite some time by France’s domestic security agency, the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI).

The names and backgrounds of those arrested have not been released. But France’s BFM-TV station said on Tuesday that their ages ranged from 20 to 60, that they were men and women, and that they belonged to an unspecified “far-right organization”. It is also notable that their arrests took place as a result of raids in three different parts of the country —namely in the city of Moselle, located on the border of France, Germany and Luxembourg, and in Ille-et-Vilaine near Rennes in France’s northwestern Brittany region. More raids reportedly took place in the region of Isere in the French Alps. Reports early on Wednesday morning said that authorities were examining the details of the alleged assassination scheme, which was “imprecise and loosely formed”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 October 2018 | Permalink

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Germany’s ruling coalition in ‘permanent crisis mode’ over far-right spy row

September 20, 2018 by Leave a comment

Hans-Georg MaassenGermany’s fragile ruling coalition continues to face strong criticism two days after removing the country’s domestic intelligence chief over concerns that he may harbor far-right sympathies. Hans-Georg Maassen, a career civil servant, led Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) from August 2012 until his removal on Thursday of this week. His hasty removal from the BfV was caused by the so-called Chemnitz protests, a series of prolonged anti-immigrant rallies, pogroms and riots that shook the east German city of Chemnitz in the last week of August of this year. They were prompted by news of the death of a German man, reportedly during a fight with two Kurdish immigrants. Videos of the protests surfaced on social media, showing participants throwing Nazi salutes, singing Nazi-era German songs and chasing people perceived to be immigrants in the streets of Chemnitz.

The controversy deepened when Maassen appeared to dispute the authenticity of the videos in an interview. The BfV director warned that the videos may have been faked as part of a disinformation campaign aimed at stirring racial tensions in Germany. The spy chief’s motives were questioned, however, when several investigative reporters, among them a team from the German public broadcaster association ARD, insisted that the videos were genuine and were posted online by people with real —not fake— accounts. Eventually Maassen became the focus of the story, as accusations surfaced that he may have leaked BfV documents to far-right activists and that he may even have coached them on how to evade government surveillance. The claims reignited widespread fears that members of Germany’s security and intelligence agencies may harbor sympathies for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a coalition of Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi groups that has gained prominence since its establishment in 2013. Currently, the AfD is Germany’s third-largest party, having received nearly 13% of the vote in the 2017 federal elections. The AfD is also the country’s main opposition party in the Bundestag, since the two leading parties, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Social Democratic Party (SPD), are members of the governing coalition.

Following nearly two weeks of controversy, the German Chancellery announced on Thursday that Maassen would be removed from head of the BfV and would serve instead as second in command in the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The decision was seen as a difficult compromise between the three members of the governing coalition —the liberals of the SPD, who wanted Maassen fired, and the conservatives of the CSU and its Bavarian wing, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, who are in favor of tighter immigration policies. But the controversy surrounding Maassen continues in light of news that the former spy chief will see his income rise in his new post. In a report from Berlin, the Reuters news agency described Maassen’s reassignment as “a clumsy compromise” that highlighted the “dysfunctional relationship” of the three “loveless partners” in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fragile governing coalition. One critic, SPD Secretary General Lars Klingbeil, told the news agency that the Maassen controversy had caused the government to “slide into a permanent crisis mode”. Meanwhile the name of Maassen’s replacement at the helm of the BfV has not yet been announced.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 20 September 2018 | Permalink

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Authorities in Eastern Europe warn about rise of heavily armed paramilitary groups

September 6, 2018 by 1 Comment

Night Wolves SlovakiaSecurity agencies in Eastern Europe have voiced concern about the rise of far-right paramilitary groups whose members have access to heavy weaponry, including in some cases armored vehicles and tanks. The most recent warning came on Sunday, when the Czech daily newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes published excerpts of a leaked security report on the subject. The report was authored by analysts in the Security Information Service (BIS), the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency. It detailed the recent activities of a group calling itself the National Home Guard, a far-right, anti-immigrant militia that some experts say consists of around 2,000 members throughout the Czech Republic. Although this is officially denied, the group is believed to be the armed wing of National Democracy, a far-right nationalist political party that received 36,000 votes in the 2017 legislative election.

The BIS report states that the National Home Guard has 90 branches across the nation and is now in possession of significant quantities of weapons, some of which have been smuggled into the Czech Republic from Libya. Many of the organization’s largest branches, in the cities of Prague, Ostrava, and elsewhere, organize regular weapons training sessions in secret locations. In some smaller cities around the country, where police presence is limited, National Home Guard is now holding regular armed patrols, in which immigrants —especially those from predominantly Muslim countries— are targeted. Additionally, the group has recently started to recruit heavily from the ranks of the police and the Czech Armed Forces, according to the BIS report.

The Mlada Fronta Dnes revelation comes only a month after a report by the BBC said that two far-right militias in Slovakia had begun training at a paramilitary base that contains armored personnel carriers and tanks. The base belongs to the Night Wolves, a biker gang that is known for its anti-immigrant and anti-European Union stance. Recently, however, the Night Wolves have been training in paramilitary tactics in coordination with two other groups, the Slovak Levies and NV Europe, said the BBC. Located in the village of Dolna Krupa, 45 miles north of the Slovakian capital Bratislava, the base contains several tanks and other armored vehicles. The Night Wolves claim that the facility hosts a World War II museum, which explains the presence of the military vehicles. But the BBC said that the group is suspected of using the base to train pro-Russia Ukrainian separatists and other Eastern European paramilitary groups. The BIS report states that far-right paramilitary groups in Czech and Slovakia —which until 1993 were regions of unified Czechoslovakia— maintain regular contact with each other.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 September 2018 | Permalink | Research credit: J.R.
► IntelNews thanks J.J. for helping to ensure the factual accuracy of this report

 

 

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German far-right group is arming itself, poses serious threat, report warns

July 25, 2018 by 2 Comments

ReichsbuergerAdherents of a bizarre far-right movement in Germany, who claim to be citizens of Prussia, are arming themselves and pose a growing security threat, says a new report by the country’s domestic spy service. The members of the movement call themselves Reichsbuerger (“citizens of the Reich”) and reject the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Instead of the modern-day German state, which emerged in 1990 from the union of East and West Germany, Reichsbuergers swear allegiance to the Deutsches Reich (German Reich), the Nazi German state that existed between 1933 and 1945. They also claim that the Deutsches Reich, which they occasionally refer to as Prussia, continues to exist in its pre-1945 state and is still governed by a provisional government in exile.

In some cases, Reichsbuerger adherents have contacted foreign embassies in Berlin and asked to be recognized as citizens of the Third Reich, but without success. In addition, some Reichsbuerger associations issue Deutsches Reich identification cards and Deutsches Reich car license plates. But these are dismissed as “fantastical” by German authorities, who have historically refused to take Reichsbuerger adherents seriously. But now the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s main domestic security agency, has said that the Reichsbuerger movement is growing and needs to be viewed as a potential security threat. According to the BfV’s annual report, which was published on Tuesday, the Reichsbuerger movement has grown by more than 65 percent since 2016 and currently consists of approximately 20,000 committed members.

In its report, the BfV notes that the numerical growth of Reichsbuerger adherents may be partly attributed to the heightened attention that German authorities have been paying to far-right organizations in recent years. The agency also states that only about five percent of Reichsbuergers may be described as violent or potentially violent extremists. However, violent Reichsbuergers have risen from 500 in 2016 to 900 in 2017, an 80% increase in a year, according to the report. Moreover, says the BfV, many core members of the Reichsbuerger movement maintain close contacts with German far-right criminal networks, whose members include current and former supporters of the National Socialist Underground (NSU). Earlier this month, several NSU members were found guilty of having participated in 10 politically motivated killings of immigrants between 2000 and 2007. The BfV report states that Reichsbuergers increasingly view the NSU’s violent acts as examples to follow, and that they are systematically attempting –and usually succeeding– to obtain gun licenses. In a report published earlier this year, the BfV had warned that the Reichsbuerger movement was trying to build an army.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 25 July 2018 | Permalink

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Man who attended Charlottesville far-right rally tried to derail passenger train

January 8, 2018 by Leave a comment

Amtrak trainA man who attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with members of a neo-Nazi organization, has been charged with terrorism offences after he tried to derail a passenger train. Taylor M. Wilson, of St. Charles, Missouri, was arrested by federal law enforcement officials on October 22, after he attempted to sabotage a passenger train with 175 people aboard in rural Nebraska. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wilson entered the train’s engine room and pulled the emergency brakes, thus bringing the train to a sudden halt. He was eventually subdued by a train conductor and other railway employees, who successfully prevented him from reaching for a loaded revolver that he had with him. Following his arrest, police found in his backpack a box of ammunition, a knife, a hammer, and a full-face respirator mask with a filter.

Now the FBI says that Wilson boarded the train intent on carrying out a terrorist assault, and that he pulled the train’s breaks “with intent to harm those aboard”. In court documents that were unsealed last week, FBI agents state that a search of Wilson’s property in Missouri uncovered a large weapons cache consisting of fifteen firearms, some of which were automatic. Nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition were also confiscated from Wilson’s house, where federal officers also found literature published by American white supremacist organizations like the National Socialist Movement. According to the indictment, some of the weapons and white nationalist literature had been hidden inside a concealed compartment located behind a refrigerator unit.

It appears that Wilson obtained most of his firearms legally and that he had been issued a concealed carry permit. However, the FBI claims that Wilson’s firearms “have been used for, or obtained in anticipation of engaging in, or planning to engage in, criminal offenses against the United States”. In addition to this claim, the FBI indictment states that Wilson traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia, in August of last year to attend the “Unite the Right” rally, which was organized by various white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi and militia groups. The FBI says that it has statements from Wilson’s associates and at least one family member, who claim that the accused traveled to Charlottesville as part of a contingent of a neo-Nazi group.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 08 January 2018 | Permalink

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